Ignorance IS Bliss! How my analytical ADD brain ruined The Walking Dead for me.

Hello folks,

BTW. SPOILER ALERT!!!!! 

     I'm not going to give anything away about the show, plot-wise,but I will be shattering a major premise, which made it impossible for me to continue to suspend disbelief. I will also speak on the Movie, The Martian, which does speak to major plot points, but i will provide you a warning there, first, and visual clues, which will help you skip that portion of the piece. (It's a piece of something, anyways.)

     I actually began writing this in Oct of '23, but in support of the SAG/AFTRA strike, I will have delayed the release, since it speaks to television and Movie scripts, i will support my fellow writers, and sit on this a bit. Now, this is your last chance to continue to enjoy The Walking Dead. I will not take offense if you stop reading, because there is sooo much to love. 

      I began watching The Walking Dead in April of 2013, while I was staying with some Cousins.  I had just started a new job at Canadian Beverage Supply in Mississauga, Ontario, but had to precede my family 

, as my kid finished the school year.  From April, until July, I spent a lot of lonely evenings with a bottle of wine and binge watching several shows that My Wife's Cousins had access to, but that I had not been able to afford. One of these was The Walking Dead.

       I made it through the better part of 3 seasons, and then I fucked up.  I hear you, dear reader, as you ask "How did you manage to unravel such a beautifully crafted universe, until you could no longer enjoy it?"

      Easy, I did the math. After I did the math, i realized that the show's timeline should have concluded after a max of 3 years. By that time, one of three things should have happened, which would have ended the Active Apocalypse. Before i share the outcomes, however, i will share the math.

      I had already suspended a lot of disbelief. First, the incompetence of the Military, in this particular version of earth, astounded me. So much so, that I had decided that this was a parallel Earth. Why?  When the series began, the American Military had been at war for for 9 years. Nearly everyone serving in Combat roles, whether Active, Reserve, or even National Guard, had seen action, or had been trained by combat Veterans. I would argue that the armed forces of The U.S. Australia, Great Britain, Canada, and several other allies and enemies, was the most confident and capable it had been since The Korean War ended in 1953. Unlike Vietnam, these Armies were nearly all Volunteer, were well equipped, and had all received extensive training.  

      Zombies are not bright. Their name is has been adopted to discribe people who seem dazed, listless, stupid, or mentally deficient. The Zombies of The Walking Dead Universe are slow, and awkward. They are capable of bursts of speed when still fairly fresh, but most are about as ambulatory as an Octogenarian who is displaying symptoms of late stage syphilis.  As a Veteran of The U.S. Marine Corps, even pre 9/11, i can honestly say that the militaries of the world would have made short work of these Zombies. The real fear would be the disease created by the hundreds of millions of corpses rotting away. Things like Typhoid and other nasties which will cause one to rapidly shit themselves to death. Furthermore, Military and law enforcement types on the show seem fairly capable, so I had to think around this. 

     Not having read the Graphic Novels, going only by what the show shared, I had to assume that the majority of the Zombies has initially died in a pandemic of sorts, over a short period of days or weeks, and then rose before burial could occur. And really, it would have to be a Super Majority, probably exceeding 70% mortality to the initial infection. This would explain why the Military could get overwhelmed, why only one person would survive in a hospital, and why some families would survive in whole or part, due to genetic resistance.  I was able to adjust my brain to this "reality", and so, I should let it go, and simply enjoy. Right?

     Wrong!  

     The approximate Population of the North American land mass, in 2010, was about 511 Million, and South America, around 395 Million. Assuming that Zombies cannot cross the oceans in significant numbers, the maximum number of potential Zombies is 906 million . I will now be very generous. 

     If 95% of people became Zombies almost instantly, this leaves, roughly 45 Million Humans. Assume half of these would die within the first 30 days, ether by zombie, some other illness, accident, violence from other humans, or because they simply gave up.  About 5 million will have some level of training or competency in the violent arts.  Another 5 million would discover hidden talents for murder, at least, for Zombies. The rest would manage to survive by their wits, or by working with the 10 million capable defenders. Call it 22 million humans vs 887 Million eventual Zombies.    

     The remaining organized Military folk and other badasses, before succumbing or running out of ammo, would likely kill off about 1/4 of the Zombies, minimum.  As Zombies are stupid, we can assume that at least 25% of the original total would walk into the ocean or be swept away by rivers, get trapped in natural or man-made holes or structures, or get destroyed by fire or other happenstance.  This leaves 443.5 million Zombies. If the 10 million capable humans killed even 1 Zombie per week, each. In 45 weeks, all of the ambulatory Zombies would be destroyed. Even accounting for a 50% attrition rate over that time, it would stretch to a max of 70 weeks, which is less than a year and a half.

    Of course, humans would collect in pockets, and clear out the immediate surrounds, so Zombies would be thick at first, and steadily more rare.  So assuming that badasses would be killing many per week, initially, but then only those which trickled in, this might, at worst, stretch the scary times to a max of about 3 years.  By that time, the remaining humans would have all the protocols and practices in place which would allow civilization to begin rebuilding, or the initial disease would mutate, and humanity would go extinct.

  Now, if you have not yet seen the movie, The Martian, with Matt Damon, but intend to, skip ahead to the next obnoxious banner.

 ************SPOILER ALERT*************

    To say that I did the math on this one would be misleading, butI have a deep enough holistic understanding of ballistics and  trigonometry to know why this film let me down, but also, I will share with you how I was able to rectify it in my brain, afterward. 

     The action climax of the film is when Matt Damon, who was strande, alone, on Mars, and was struggling to survive, had a chance at being rescue by the people who ha accidentally left him behind. NASA got a misanthropicath Math wizard to calculate an orbital slingshot around Earth.  In distant Space travel, inertia is everything. The spacecraft had already expended the majority of Its fuel to accelerate back toward Earth, and only had a modest resrve of maneuvering fuel.  And due to how Orbits and acceleration work, if they did not go back for him right away, it would take a superlong time to return and save him.  Instead, since Earth and Mars were inmore optimal positions for a shorter trip, if they could simply  redirect the shop then, they could get back in a few months, rather than a couple of years. 

     The Misanthrope Math Genius calculaes a maneuver whereas the ship drops int a low orbit of Earth or the Moon(don't remember which)  but at the perfect altitude for their present spee, to accelerate the ship, and with a little bump at the right time, break orbit and shoot off towards Mars.   Cool. This is a proven and calculable thing.  Of course, they wouldn't actually need a grumpy weirdo for this. There are dozens of computers who could figure this out in a matter of seconds.      

     Mind you, this is incredibly difficult. You are whipping yourself around one giant rock that travels atalmost 30 km a second, and trying to hit a perfect orbit altitude on another rock that is Millions of Km away, and is, Istelf moving at about 25 meters a second. Oh, and both are moving in an arc.  Regardless, they did it and they do it in real life. The European Space Agency once hit a comet, which is astronomically speaking, an iota, meaning about as small an item as is worth measuring or mentioning. And comets are much faster than planets, generally. 

     I digress. Let us cheer for the human math wiz, and rejoice that the taxpayer is saving hundreds of millions of dollars. The aim is true. Only, Matt Damon now has to build a rocket out of some old probes and assorted detritus. Unfortunately Matt is a better farmer than he is a rocket scientist. For some reason, I suspect mainly for reasons of audience engagement, the open-air rocket sled is coming up short.  The space ship uses their last  bit of maneuvering fuel to bump just close enough to save Matt. Hooray! America is the best......except.....

     The problem, te second they shifted closer to Mars to catch their buddy,changing their perfectly calculated orbital whip around Mars, leaving no maneuvering fuel to correct after the catch, they all should have died.  The change in orbit would have come to one of two results.  First result is they get to close and are trapped into a degrading orbit that ends with them landing or crashing back to Mars. 

     Second scenario is that they whip around and brake loose of orbit, butin the wrong directio and at the wrong speed. Even if they miss1 degree or 1 km a minute, they miss Earth by an irrecoverable margin. Worse yet, they miss by more than 90 degrees, and they miss the whole of the inner solar system. Next stop......the Oort cloud.  

     The way I was able to think myself off the ledge here is that the Chinese were about to send a rescue, so they could, theoretically, work out a rendezvous and save the stupid, arrogant Americans.

      Or, since America is so Fuck yeah and bitchen, they would find a way to refuel with some of their oxyge, and they would manufacture hydrogen with aluminum foil and sodium hydroxide. They could compress them into liquid by sheer will and by making the toilet into a pump of some kind.  Hooray Capitalism.  

************THE TAKE AWAY*************

       What we have learned, is this:  When consuming fantastical fictions you enjoy, just turn off your brain. No good will come of "What if..." Or "Why don't they just......" Just except the reality of the slice of pie you are being fed, because pie is yummy.  Just eat your pie.

Cheers all.